May 27, 2010
COLUBUMS, Ohio - The Northwestern baseball team (24-32) will never have to face Purdue starter Matt Bischoff again, and for the Wildcats it couldn't come soon enough.
Having already broken the Purdue career strikeout record against NU during the regular season on April 24, the senior right-hander tossed his second complete game of the year, became the Boilermakers' season record holder for strikeouts and tied the season record for victories in a dominating 11-1 win over the third-seeded Wildcats in the first elimination game of the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday.
Bischoff (10-2), who scattered 10 hits over the course of the nine innings of work on Thursday, struck out eight, walked two and ran his consecutive scoreless innings streak against Northwestern to 18 2/3 innings dating back to the 2009 season before giving up a two-out run in the sixth inning.
He snapped the season strikeout record he shared with Sherard Clinckscales (1992) and Andy Swain (1989), his career-best 88th of the year, on a second-inning punchout of Trevor Stevens and moved into a tie with Jeff Isom (1993) and John Carrico (1989) on the record list with his 10th win of the year. Bischoff's season total of 95 Ks now stands alone as the high water mark in West Lafayette.
Offensively the Boilermaker bats erupted for its 11 runs on 15 hits off of eight different NU pitchers. The Boilers snapped a scoreless tie in the bottom of the second with four runs on five hits, tacked on three more in the fifth and added a pair of runs in both the seventh and eighth to win going away.
Individually, Drew Madia (3 for 3, 2B, RBI, 2 R), Jonathan Lilly (3 for 5, 2 R) and Tyler Spillner (3 for 5, 2B, RBI, 2 R) all finished with three hits apiece, while freshman catcher Kevin Plawecki went 2 for 4 with 12th double of the season and a game-high three RBIs.
The 10-run victory marked the 10th time in 14 trips to the league's postseason tournament that Purdue (32-23) has won at least one contest. The Boilermakers will play for a third sraight day at 12:05 p.m. on Friday against rival Indiana in another elmination game. All of the Big Ten Tournament action can be seen live on the Big Ten Network.